


The Big Ship

by peccadilloes



Series: The Big Ship [2]
Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 19:30:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17147762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peccadilloes/pseuds/peccadilloes
Summary: After confronting her at the press conference, Arthur snags a late interview with Shannon. Then he goes home to Curt.





	The Big Ship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegirlwiththemouseyhair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/gifts).



> Placebo's "Pure Morning"

"I'm only here to cover the Tommy Stone tour," Arthur says. Shannon doesn't stand up to greet him. He sits across from her.

“Do you want to be?” Shannon asks. She granted him the interview, and he'd stood in the hallway outside Tommy Stone's dressing room for three hours.

Arthur shrugs. "Do you?"

“The show is derivative,” Shannon offers, "and Tommy knows that. He wanted to be more like Curt Wild, but it's the glam that sells out the stadiums." She uncrosses then recrosses her legs. "Listen, I've seen you with Curt in the papers. You're in his interviews. I know who you are."

Arthur closes his notebook, sets it aside. Sucks in his lips, looks up. "Right, okay."

"Did he ask you to come?"

Arthur shakes his head. "Just before I left to come here and wait to see you, my editor canceled the article. It's scrapped completely, the whole piece. I interviewed--I'd talked to Mandy about the fake death anniversary, all of it. My editor wasn't--I thought I could write about AIDS in _The Herald._ Mandy said it'd been seven years since she last saw him. She said you would know."

"What happened. He didn't want me to see him in the end. He was--" She pauses here, shakes her head. Stands up and smooths her trousers. "I have so many more more interviews to take care of today, Arthur, and everybody's watching me like a hawk right now. We can't talk about this here. But I have a break in Las Vegas on Christmas Day. I'm off the clock until the afternoon. Then we go to the hospital to greet sick children."

Arthur lets out a deep breath. He stands up, too. "Okay," he says. He puts on his jacket. He shakes Shannon's hand.

"I would talk to Curt. But don't bring Mandy into my life again. It wasn't a job to her," Shannon says. Her tone is light, humored. She opens the door to the dressing room and gestures Arthur out into the hallway.

It's a downpour by the time the subway reaches his stop. A few passengers rush down the steps with sopping umbrellas and soaked hair. No taxis around. Arthur heads home. Curt will be there, because Curt in his own way has become home. On and off since after the Farewell to Glam show. Arthur would like to remember it better, but memory isn't love or friendship or conversation--the full belly laughs he'd felt on his back in the sunlight that morning and all those other ones afterward.

Curt will be standing in the kitchen at the sink, a dish towel over his shoulder and his white t-shirt, the same ponytail as before except his hair tucked behind his ears. Bread smells coming out of the oven, some delicious and warm soup simmering on the stove.

The key to the front door of their building is easy in the lock. The lock three flights up is a bit more fussy. It turns over for Arthur soon enough, and he gets blasted in the face with warm humidity as he opens the door. The burgundy drapes are pulled shut, and the b-side of Curt's 1969 album is just getting underway on the record player.

"You old man in here listening to your records again?" Arthur says. But he is smiling. "I like this one."

Curt shows his hands, wet from the sink. "You know me. How did it go with Shannon?"

Arthur gives Curt a look that's scowly and tight around the eyes.

Curt licks his lips.

Arthur steps from the wood floor to the red rug, where he proceeds to wriggle out of his messenger bag and his wet, heavy leather jacket. His sweater is soaked through and so is his undershirt. Arthur kicks off his loafers with a squish, then peels off his sweater.

Curt has stayed by the sink, but he towels off his hands.

Arthur unbuttons his jeans and pulls off his socks. Curt picks up Arthur's jacket and hangs it over a chair at the table. He takes Arthur's bag and pulls out all the papers. He puts them on the table, slings the bag over the other chair.

Arthur watches Curt move. He pulls his undershirt up over his head and puts it in Curt's open, waiting hand. Curt drops it on the pile of wet clothes on the rug.

Arthur smiles. "Shannon told me she could talk to me about it. She said she'll be in Las Vegas on Christmas because Tommy has the Christmas Eve show, then she has a break until they go to a children's hospital thing in the afternoon," he says.

Curt's face betrays some surprise.

"She told me she recognized me from the papers _and_ your interviews."

"No!" Curt says. He belts out a laugh.

Arthur, in his pants only, strolls to the loo. Curt, of course, follows him in. He pulls the door shut behind them and reaches for Arthur's back. Pulls him close and kisses his shoulder. Arthur tenses with held-in laughter. Curt leans back against the porcelain sink. "Handsome man, you were there after my set--"

"So was Mandy--"

"You were standing there with green hair--I bet Shannon doesn't want to see _her_ again," Curt says. He takes his hair out from his ponytail and runs his fingers through it.

"You are right on that one," Arthur says. "I went with the Flaming Creatures, we saw the shooting star, I told you I had a button--"

"Several buttons," Curt says.

Arthur shakes his head and laughs a little. "--and several beers." He pulls the curtain around the claw foot tub and starts the shower. Braces for the sound of it. Steps out of his pants. "I'd never seen you perform before."

"You were staring," Curt says.

"Such nice-looking hair. Parted down the middle. The choker, your belt," Arthur says. He gives Curt a push on his stomach. "You were staring, too."

"I've got to go check the bread," Curt says. "You had on those round gold earrings with the big fake gems in them."

"Turn the record over when it's done?"

"Alright."


End file.
